Martina Crusades For Rights

CHARLES BRICKER - On Tennis

That's Animal Rights Even For Turkeys

October 15, 1995|CHARLES BRICKER

Martina Navratilova was heavy into her animal rights mode. People with a cause sound sincere, but you wonder whether they believe half their dogma.

Last week Navratilova was sitting with a handful of reporters at the Delray Beach Tennis Center, publicizing the Dec. 2-3 legends tournament in which she will compete with Chris Evert, Billie Jean King, Virginia Wade, Tracy Austin and others.

She sat at a small table with her 6-pound terrier in her lap and began pontificating about how wrong it is to kill or eat animals.

She was a vegetarian. ... Why couldn't everyone be a vegetarian. ... I was OK with this until she got to the Save the Turkey section of the program.

"You can have fun with a turkey without killing one," she said. She had just done a public service advertisement urging Americans not to eat turkey on Thanksgiving.

I asked her: "Uh, how do you have fun with a turkey?" You listen to it. You look at it, she replied.

My eyes rolled and they alit on three small tins of Mighty Dog dog food sitting on the adjacent table. One had been opened so she could feed her terrier.

The contents? Beef with gravy.

But cigarettes OK?

Navratilova may be speaking out about not eating meat, but she isn't saying too much about the dangers of cigarettes. One reason is that this little Delray soiree is sponsored by Virginia Slims.

"I'm not endorsing it," she said. Neither is she preaching to teen-agers or anyone else about the dangers of smoking.

Out of sight

-- Chris Evert hasn't talked to Jennifer Capriati since seeing her at the Hall of Fame dinner at the U.S. Open and has no plans to contact her to urge her back onto the WTA Tour. She doubts Capriati has any plans for a comeback. ...

-- How did Monica Seles suddenly turn into a demon server at the U.S. Open. Evert says her sources tell her Seles used one of the new longer rackets - the same kind that helped Michael Chang put some juice into his serve. ... Seles will play the Australian Open and is expected to run more or less a full schedule in 1996. ...

-- With Andre Agassi out of Lyon next week with an injury, Pete Sampras can cut Agassi's 441-point lead for the No.1 ranking by about 200 points by winning the tournament...

-- When Mark Philippoussis stuffed Stefan Edberg 6-0, 6-2 last week on the indoor carpet in Tokyo it was Edberg's worst career loss on anything other than clay and put him out of the top 20 for the first time since Dec. 3, 1984. ...

-- Jim Courier has won tournaments on four continents and next plays Beijing, Oct. 16-22. ...